ISTANBUL, TURKEY ­””mdash; For as long as I can remember,
but especially after Sept. 11, 2001, whenever I would tell people
of my plans to visit family in the Middle East for the summer, I
was sure to encounter at least one person worried for my safety.

Viewpoint 2 is angled a little to the right so you can see
better. In the little space between it and the taupe foamy board,
I’ve crammed a lot of information, most new and some old; a
few old bits with a new twist.

Imagine seats made of foliage and decorated with floral blooms,
hammocks strung together between trees, made of vines and stuffed
generously with feathers donated by local fauna.

The season where high school kids explore UCLA is back. I love
to watch them, wide-eyed and hopeful. “Look,” they
whisper, “college students.” “Look,” we
think, “high school students.”
In a way, they’re right to gawk.

Fictional Bob takes a piece of a puzzle. He measures its height,
width and depth. He analyzes the lines and curves of its grooved
sides. He tests its composition and the ink used to print it.

The world is flat, and I can prove it. Except that I can’t
show you the proof I have because it’s very sensitive
material. I have to hide it for security, or else Russia or the
Middle East or Mexico might find the information and try to push us
off the edge.

Monday you can learn to swing, Tuesday, Wednesday go see THING,
or Thursday hear artists at Fowler sing; then it’s
Friday’s cheap movie.
All these things are activities that will be offered for
students to experience in the following weeks at school.

Tarzan may be running the national government, but Peter Rabbit
is running UCLA’s student government.
At least, “Peter Rabbit” is what one student guessed
on an informal survey that I, with the help of my former editor
Colleen Honigsberg, conducted Friday.

That old cell phone of yours is not going to decompose in your
desk drawer, closet or (enter where you’ve hidden it here).
Neither is that TV that’s magically no longer your problem
once you set it outside your apartment.

Discussion sections should be abolished.
OK, perhaps that’s too extreme a statement, but I
wouldn’t mind some reform.
In the ideal case, discussion sections are meant to make huge
lower-division classes more personal.